


There's nothing wrong with you (it's true)

by artsyleo



Series: Trans Eastenders [1]
Category: EastEnders (TV)
Genre: Coming Out, Deaf Character, Domestic Fluff, Family Feels, Fluff and Angst, Future Fic, Light Angst, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Nonbinary Character, Pride, The Author Regrets Nothing, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:46:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24717760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artsyleo/pseuds/artsyleo
Summary: Ben is a good father. One day he'll be able to tell himself that, without having to be convinced.
Relationships: Callum "Halfway" Highway/Ben Mitchell
Series: Trans Eastenders [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1803019
Comments: 18
Kudos: 58





	There's nothing wrong with you (it's true)

It’s taken eight long years for Ben to convince himself that he’s a good father. Well, he loves Lexi to pieces, there’s no doubt at all about that, but for years there was still that voice in his head convincing himself that he was just damaging the kid, just like his own father had done to him. If there’s one thing he never wants to see in his life it’s himself turning out to be like Phil. On bad days, there’s still that voice in his head, that voice that he knows now will probably never go away. Most of the time it sounds like Phil, even though the man himself is long out of Ben’s life now. It’s the voice of his demons, the voice that crawls into his subconscious and plants it’s little doubts there for them to grow like weeds until Ben can’t help but notice them. Most of the time it’s just little mantras about how Callum can never properly love him, or about how he’ll never be good enough for the man, and that’s not even so ridiculous, it seems. Callum is still just as good-hearted as he’s always been, and Ben can’t help but feel lucky every day that he wakes up with Callum by his side, kissing him good morning and bringing him breakfast in bed, or waking him up in slightly more, creative, ways. Yeah, it’s safe to say that most of his doubts stem from his perfect husband (fuck, that just feels so perfect to think), but there’s always one or two. Niggling thoughts that grow to spirals of self-doubt, things he knows he’ll never stop worrying about. If Ben amounts to nothing else in his life, he wants to know that he’s raised Lexi well. Callum tells him almost every day that he’s done a good job, that he’s doing a good job, so much so that after eight blissful years, he can start to believe it. It’s not just Callum’s reassurance that helps to build up that wall, though. Sometimes it comes from Lexi alone.

The first time it truly hits him, is when Lexi comes out to him.

He’s always brought Lexi up (at least he hopes he has) with the mantra that the child can be anything they want to be, and he firmly believes it. He’d promised himself years ago, as soon as he’d started taking proper care of Lexi, that he would never let his child go through what he’d been through with Phil after he’d come out. Those weeks of anxiety and hell, weeks that turned into years of never feeling good enough, things that he can still hear Phil saying today, he could never let anyone else feel like that, ever, let alone his own child.

He and Callum talk to Lexi about it when they’re still young, maybe nine or ten. The both of them make sure that Lexi knows they can be anything they want to be. Lexi just stares at them like it’s obvious, with the usual sassy ‘I know that, daddy’ and carries on colouring, asking Callum whether the unicorn should be blue or pink. It makes his heart swell to see his child’s confidence, and Callum later tells him that it’s Ben alone that’s made the kid feel like that. That’s maybe the first time that Ben feels like a good father, but it’s nothing compared to that day.

Ben had noticed Lexi had been off for weeks before, quieter than usual. Ben has absolutely no experience raising a teenager, because Lexi’s fifteen and neither he nor Callum have a normal childhood experience as a frame of reference. Ben can’t help but feel a little lost but he’s patient, and, well, if he reads a few parenting books online, that’s nobody else’s business. It takes until the day it happens for Ben to realise how stupidly blind he’s been.

Lexi sits the both of them down one evening, and the child looks pale enough to pass out right there. They’re wringing their hands nervously, a habit that Ben’s sure they’ve picked up from Callum over the years. Ben asks them what’s wrong, because the three of them never do anything this serious and, if he’s honest, it makes him nervous- he’s never exactly been good at emotions. Lexi is more like Callum in that respect, unafraid to be honest and emotional, and he’s glad (it’s not like he enjoys having an aversion to talking about anything that’s vaguely emotional).

Lexi signs something that Ben can’t quite decipher at first, because it’s a word that he’s unfamiliar with. Lexi must see his confusion, though, because they slide a small piece of paper across the table, with just a few words scrawled on it in Lexi’s perfect handwriting (another thing they’ve seemingly adopted from Callum, because they’ve definitely not gotten it from either of their biological parents).

I’m non-binary.

Ben has to admit, he’s not the most well-educated gay man ever, but he’s tried to do what he can over the years to educate himself on stuff like this. He’d been confused at first, but he knows that’s probably just because he’d been raised in a family that was practically held together by toxic masculinity and over the top levels of testosterone. In all honesty, in the moment, he’s not quite sure he even really understands it then, but he knows that’s not the important thing right then. When he looks back up from the paper on the table, Lexi’s got tears in their eyes, and they’re looking straight at Ben, terrified. It breaks his heart, because he’s not quite sure how long he’s been staring at the paper, and the last thing he wants is for his daughter-his child, to worry about any of this. He’s never been good at all this emotion, so he doesn’t try to force out any out of character words. He just gets up silently and walks around the table to wrap his arms around Lexi, who he can feel sigh into his shoulder.

“I love you so much, baby,” he whispers, hoping that, even though he can’t hear it himself, his voice doesn’t crack. “I’m so proud of you.”

He can feel then the tears that soak into his t-shirt and he pulls away quickly, terrified that he’s said something wrong. Lexi just smiles at him though, even though there’s tears running down their face.

‘Happy tears’, they sign, hands shaking. They turn towards Callum then, whose eyes are also wet.

‘So proud of you,’ Callum signs, before coming around to join in their hug. For a while they just sit there like that, all of them crying slightly, with Lexi enveloped between her fathers.

-

“Do you want to change your name?” Ben whispers later, when they’ve moved onto the sofa. Callum’s asleep with his head on the arm of the sofa, so it’s just Lexi snuggled up to his side. Lexi turns to look up at him, and pulls their arms out from around Ben.

‘I don’t think so,’ they sign. ‘I like the name Lexi’.

Ben smiles. “I do too, as long as you’re happy.”

Ben almost moves to turn back to the TV, but Lexi taps his knee. That nervousness is back in their eyes, and their hands are still shaking a little.

‘I want you to call me ‘they’ though,’ Lexi signs.

Ben nods. “I’ll try, I promise. I might forget sometimes though, you just have to tell me.”

‘That’s okay, I know your old man memory isn’t quite as good as it used to be’, Lexi signs, and its has all of their usual cheek in it, and ben couldn’t be happier to see that smile back on their face.

“Oi, cheeky! Less of the old, thank you very much,” he says, pulling them closer.

‘I love you, dad,’ they sign.

“I love you too, baby.”

-

Ben isn’t perfect. He makes mistakes, says the wrong things sometimes, but he’s only human. Lexi understands, helps him to understand how things have been for them, and what he can do to help. Callum comes back one day from work with this massive cheeky grin on his face, and he looks chuffed as anything when he produces a t-shirt in Lexi’s size that has ‘my gender is no’ printed in big letters across the front. Lexi bursts out laughing, and takes the shirt from Callum, racing upstairs to try it on. When they come back, the three of them take a picture together that now resides in a frame on their mantelpiece, and it’s definitely Ben’s favourites, because he doesn’t think he’s ever seen Lexi look so happy. For the next few weeks, Callum constantly brings them little gifts that relate to the t-shirt (it’s a little silver pronoun pin one week, and a pride flag the next that he later hangs in Lexi’s room, over their bed), and Ben doesn’t think he’s ever been more in love with the man.

-

When the three of them travel down to the parade together in June, everything feels just slightly different, but in the best way. Lexi’s decorated both his and Callum’s faces with glitter, and their own with a rainbow on one cheek. They have their pride flag wrapped around their shoulders, and Callum jokes that it makes them look like a superhero. It’s a joke that doesn’t die down for the rest of the day, but Ben can’t find it in himself to care, despite the fact that he is definitely not a fan of superheroes.

That day, it’s maybe the first time that he doesn’t need Callum, or anyone else, to tell him that he’s a good father. For the first time, he can finally see it himself.

**Author's Note:**

> oof am I nervous to post this  
> Okay so for those of you who don't know, I'm nonbinary! today's prompt for ballum week was pride, and so I just really wanted to write some enby coming out fluff, and write more of ben and Lexi's relationship because we're deprived on the show. if you liked this I'd really appreciate a comment bc I'm super nervous haha, hope you enjoyed! stay safe  
> Leo <3 (come find me on tumblr @artsy-highway)


End file.
